1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electrotherapy device suited for providing therapy adhered to the skin.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the past, there has been known an electrotherapy device applying a weak current of a high potential to a seated body and repeating this over several days so as to treat arthritis, backaches, aching shoulders, languidity, fatigue, chills, poor blood circulation, and other chronic symptoms of unknown cause. There is little scientific or theoretical explanation of why application of an alternating current of a high potential (several thousand volts) "cures".
Everyone suffers from one of the chronic symptoms characteristic of middle and old age where this type of chronic pain or hardship persists. This being said, the extent of suffering of a person is not something judged objectively, but can only be understood by the statements of the person in question, so frequently tends to be ignored. Further, if the person in question pays too much attention to it, the reliability of his or her statements becomes questionable and conversely delays the determination of the cause. Accordingly, for this type of symptom, the general treatment is first applied and the result then examined. As such treatment, there are electrotherapy, magnetotherapy, heat and hot spring therapy, "shiatsu" finger-pressure therapy, acupuncture and moxibustion, vibration therapy, and other physical therapy.
It is well known that the voltage and potential of the body fluids play an important role in the tissue, organs, cellular level, and nervous system of the human body. Electrical factors are highly involved in ensuring the autonomous homeostasis of the body.
The afore-mentioned electrotherapy, however, applies too unnaturally high a potential (several thousand volts) from the outside to substantially the entire body in an unlimited manner and therefore is nothing more than a kind of electric shock treatment. Repeated exposure to a high potential over several days, while painless to the person in question, must be said to rather be an extreme measure and may do much more harm than good.
From this standpoint, the present inventor engaged in intensive studies to find a new type of electrotherapy and as a result found that it is necessary to limit the area treated (diseased area or pressure point) such as seen in shiatsu therapy and acupuncture and moxibustion and that it is suitable to give some sort of electrical stimulus to such an area treated. The problem is to "give . . . electrical stimulus". For example, giving voltage or a current to the area treated, while the therapeutic significance is unknown, resembles local electric shock acting forcibly from the outside.
In view of this problem, the present inventor found that even patients complaining about such chronic symptoms of unknown cause can be said to be merely suffering from a slight collapse of their autonomic balance and arrived at the idea that it was sufficient to induce an autonomic recovery from this unbalance (unclear point). Accordingly, what should be done to the body from the outside is to "sustain" the procedure of "guiding" the treated area.